My desire to become a lawyer has only grown

As an aspiring law student and lawyer, I wanted to get an insight into how a law firm functions, and to experience the day to day work of a lawyer; Gilson Gray gave me this opportunity, and for a week in June, I was welcomed by all the departments in both the Edinburgh and Glasgow offices to experience the reality of a being lawyer.

My experience started with a meeting with the firm’s Managing Partner, Glen Gilson, who gave me the story of how and why he set up a law firm based on honest DNA and its people and focused me on what I need to get out of this week. Feeling motivated, I moved into my first department- residential conveyancing. Throughout the day I was exposed to a huge amount of legal documents, which allowed me to understand the language and structure of legal documents related to conveyancing.

After an interesting first day, I was excited to return on Tuesday to explore the other departments. The day would turn out to be just as interesting; I started in the marketing department, researching the positives and possible improvements to the social media pages of Gilson Gray and its competitors in property, which I enjoyed as it showed me the business side of the firm, an aspect vital to its growth.  The second half of the day was spent with the family law team, who set me a research task related to a case. Knowing that research forms an important part of any legal case, it was useful to be given research to complete for a live case to fully understand the type of research lawyers complete. As the end of my second day at Gilson Gray was coming to an end, I was beginning to fully understand the strong foundations of honesty and reliability by which the firm’s DNA is formed of, and I was welcomed by the kind and approachable members of all the departments.

The strong welcome was not exclusive to the Edinburgh office; on Wednesday I spent the Day in the Glasgow office. The day started with a warm welcome from Graham Millar, the head of employment law, followed by a talk about how I plan to progress in my education, a talk which was valuable, as an opinion and advice from someone in the profession I desire was very helpful the planning of my future. After an introduction to all the members of the Glasgow team, I started my work, first for commercial to research the rules of the disclosure of common areas of a property, and then a retrieval of information exercise for the corporate team. I was really pleased to be able to spend time with the corporate team, as that is the department I was considering as my pathway in the future. Following corporate was a scenario exercise given to me from the private client team about disputes over a will.  This gave me an insight into an area of law I hadn’t thought a great deal about, but I enjoyed this and reminded me to have an open mind about the pathway of law I want to take in the future. To end the day I was given a case from the litigation department to read and decide how the strategy for the progression of a case. Litigation was also an area of law I had not considered, but after my experience with litigation in Glasgow, it has become an aspect of law I had particularly enjoyed and become interesting in.

After a new and interesting experience with litigation in Glasgow, I was delighted to hear on Thursday, when I returned to the Edinburgh office, that I would be accompanying litigation to the Sheriff’s court. This gave me an insight into the proceedings of a Scottish court, something I was keen to experience as I had come to the firm from London, where court proceeds are different. To finish off my experience with litigation on Thursday morning I completed some research of cases similar to an active case the team was begging. The morning with litigation consolidated my thoughts that litigation is an area of law I would be looking to enter. In a nice contrast, I attended the ESPC conference at the Hilton hotel in the afternoon; ESPC is an organisation I didn’t know existed prior to the conference and was interesting to hear the CEO talk about the financial performance of the organisation, and to hear of a new product they hope to offer.

By the end of Friday, my last day at Gilson Gray, my desire to become a lawyer had only grown, and so had my understanding of why Gilson Gray was performing so well and growing at such a fast pace; the DNA which is at the core of the firm reflects the kind nature of the team who form it, and I am grateful to all at Gilson Gray who contributed to the incredible experience I have had and would love to return for more experience in the law profession.